Just before the airship managed to gain more altitude and swing away, Maria saw Ryan look up at her, wink, then disappear under the onslaught of the Inferi Scourge.
Dangling from her harness, Maria stared at the decimated remains of the perimeter wall. An arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her dangling body closer to the doorway.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw the devastated expressions of the other soldiers.
The blue eyes of the Chief Defender met her gaze steadily. It was his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her.
Lindsey, weak and wounded, lay on top of some other soldiers. Her friend’s eyes were full of unshed tears and Maria stretched out her hand to her. Lindsey clasped her hand, closed her eyes, and sobbed.
“We failed,” Maria finally said.
“Never give up hope,” Dwayne answered above the roar of the wind.
The tiltrotor’s engines began to sputter as it flew over the enormous wall surrounding The Bastion.
Chapter 1
One Year Later
The fan sputtered, then died as the rolling blackout hit her section of the city. With a groan, Maria peeled the covers from her damp body and sat at the edge of the bed. Her silky black hair fell over one shoulder, covering her bare breast. The heat was already rising in her small flat. The metal walls and high windows made the narrow room claustrophobic and, once the power cut out, stifling.
“Another glorious day in hell,” Dwayne muttered beside her. He peered at her from under the arm thrown over his face to shield his blue eyes from the sunlight beginning to pour through the window above the rumpled bed.
Maria yawned. “You mean a glorious day in the last great bastion of humanity?”
“That speech last night really did suck,” Dwayne decided, laughing.
“Our fearless leader is full of shit.” Maria stood up, stretching out her lean, muscular body. “President Cabot isn’t the best liar. That whole line about ‘our time of crisis being at an end’ was ridiculous.”
She sensed Dwayne making a grab for her ass and easily stepped out of reach. He groaned with frustration, then dragged his body out of bed. Scars crisscrossed his muscled arms and chest, a terrible reminder of the day he had almost died while fighting the Inferi Scourge. She had her own scars, her darker skin rising into hard keloids. They were fading slowly, but would never completely leave her.
A panicked soldier had tossed a grenade at the wrong time during the last great battle against the Scourge. Only their battle suits had kept Maria and Dwayne from being ripped to pieces, but some of the shrapnel had managed to pierce through the aging armor. It had been a terrifying twenty-four hours before they were cleared of the ISPV infection. Oddly, it was the time in the hospital that had laid the foundation for Dwayne and Maria’s relationship.
“Our fearless leader may be full of shit, but it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep the civilians calm. We don’t need riots in the streets again,” Dwayne said, yawning.
“I’m just tired of being lied to. And to make it worse I have to defend those lies because it’s my duty.” Maria twisted her hair back from her face and flipped it over one shoulder. She wasn’t vain by nature, but her hair was the one aspect of her looks she actually cared about. It was very long, glossy black, and thick with just a slight wave to it.
“We all do what we have to,” Dwayne answered with a sigh.
She plugged the coffeemaker into her small generator to brew what little coffee remained in her precious stores. Dwayne slid his arms around her waist and pressed hard kisses against the back of her neck. She leaned into him, feeling his erection against her back, and toyed with the idea of dragging him back to bed. With a sigh, she pushed that thought away. Duty called in just two short hours.
“If you keep doing that, we’ll both be in trouble,” she teased, turning her head to catch a kiss.
“Tomorrow is our day,” Dwayne promised.
“I can’t wait,” Maria answered, then returned her attention to rigging her ancient coffee maker.
“I have meetings all day today. Something is up with the high command,” he said in her ear.
“I have to go stare out at a whole fuckload of Scrags howling at me all day,” she answered, using the military slang for the Inferi Scourge. “I kinda think I’m the lucky one.”
“You have no idea,” Dwayne muttered, then let her go. “I think I’d rather deal with the Scrags all day.” He stepped into the small shower in the corner of the room and slid the plastic door shut.
Maria winced when he yelped as the cold water hit him. They had overslept, and with the power down there was no way to heat the water in the reserve tank. Glancing out the narrow window over her tiny kitchen counter, she could see the long stretch of rectangular gray buildings reaching out toward the high steel walls that enclosed The Bastion.
It was an ugly, rank home. Lines of drying wash were the only bits of color in the city. On the edge of the far west of the city were bands of green where the fruits and vegetables were grown along the wall.
The Bastion was the only world she had ever known and she hated it.
Her silky black hair fell down around her face as she fumbled with the packaging for her daily protein ration. There were only so many ways to disguise tofu. Today it had a chickenish shape. The frozen lump would be a boring dinner unless she could pick up some herbs and vegetables in the market. Rations were enough to keep someone alive, but it was the produce and herbs from private gardens maintained on rooftops and in small courtyards that added flavor and spice to meals. Breakfast was either going to be bland oatmeal mixed with protein powder or a protein bar. She frowned at either option, shuffling her meager stores around in the cabinet.
Dwayne emerged from the shower, dripping and shaking his head. “Ugh. Cold shower. Hot room.”
“These rolling blackouts are not doing anything for morale, especially mine. It’s freaking summer. It’s too hot to be without air conditioning.” She finally settled on the oatmeal and emptied the packet into a bowl of water.
Dwayne sighed, shoving his hand through his hair, slicking it back. The silver hair at his temples and sideburns had increased recently. The silver strands had started to appear soon after his promotion to Castellan. He was a war hero and his promotion had been a political one. As Castellan he was in charge of protecting The Bastion, but Commandant Pierce of the Constabulary made his job difficult. He was often kept out of the loop on some of the more urgent matters. He had a good twenty-five years on Maria, yet he was ruggedly handsome, and his smile made her knees weak.
“Yeah, well, there is a lot more going on than they’re letting us know.” He began to shrug on his dark blue uniform, looking grim. “The Bastion is falling apart. Everyone knows it, the government just won’t admit it. Well, actually, they can’t admit it.”
“The Scrags may never get into the walls and slaughter us all, but we’re all slowly dying in here. In the end they will win,” Maria decided grimly.
“I hope it never comes to that, and if I have any say about it, it won’t,” Dwayne vowed.
“I sometimes I wish I could crawl inside your head and know what the world was like before the Scrags destroyed the outside world. What it looked like…smelled like.” She sighed, sitting at the edge of the bed. Her panties stuck to her tan skin and her hair tickled her bare breasts.
“I wish you could, too.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek, smelling of soap. “I wish I could show you the world I knew when I was a kid. But it was far from perfect. The Scrags were already destroying parts of the world when I was born.”
“But you knew a life where you didn’t have to live in this damn broken down city,” Maria reminded him.
Dwayne chuckled lightly, a twinge of bitterness to its tone. “Yes, but that only meant I witnessed the great fall of humanity and our exodus here. Not pleasant.”
“True,” Maria exhaled. “I hate feeling this way! But that speech last night...”
The night before, Dwayne had arrived just in time for them to curl up in her bed and watch the live broadcast. It was the anniversary of the great battle that had ended in defeat and the death of hundreds of soldiers. Maria and Dwayne had almost lost their own lives, and Maria still missed Ryan. It had been rumored that the speech would announce new victories against the Inferi Scourge and advancements in food production to boost morale in the city. Instead, it had been another charismatic but empty speech, full of false promises of a bright future that was not reflected in the everyday lives of the inhabitants of The Bastion.
“You and I know differently because we see it. But to all the people who never see what lies outside of the walls of this city, it gave them hope,” Dwayne reminded her.
“But it’s not real,” Maria protested.
“No, but it’s what they need.” Dwayne lightly touched her cheek. “You give me hope. You’re what I need.”
Smiling slightly, she whispered, “You’re my everything.”
His lips caught hers and they shared a long, lingering kiss. Despite her tough exterior and reputation as a bad ass, she felt terribly vulnerable when she was with Dwayne. He owned her heart and soul completely.
